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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27649138">Can You Imagine?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wherethesinscry/pseuds/wherethesinscry'>wherethesinscry</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Julie and The Phantoms (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:42:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,196</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27649138</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wherethesinscry/pseuds/wherethesinscry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Trevor speaks to his bandmates for the first time in 25 years thanks to Julie's help.</p><p>Read to help manifest Forgiveness for Trevor in season 2.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>90</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Can You Imagine?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The garage wasn’t as he remembered it, and yet the feelings of nostalgia nearly knocked him off his feet when he entered. There was Alex’s drum kit, unchanged save for the band name printed on the bassdrum, right under the loft, exactly where it was the last time he was there. 25 years ago. There was Reggie’s bass, and Luke’s guitar, balanced on their stands just like the good old days. Across from that setup was a couch. A different couch than the one they had. It was a much nicer thing than the ratty piece of garbage with a ‘free’ sign he had picked up off the side of the road in 1993, but it sat in the exact same spot. The coffee table in front of it was made of wood and glass, and the stacks of magazines and CD’s were neat. When he was last here it had been nothing more than a plank of wood balanced on two cinder blocks covered in unorganized half-completed sheet music and day old cups of coffee. The piano was new. It was polished and sat in the nook that used to be home to a makeshift bar that was always understocked. They had been underage, after all. Behind the piano was a beautiful display of leafy and bright plants. The window behind them had been cleaned. Back when this was his garage it was covered in greasy fingerprints that they never bothered to windex away. He wondered if it was Rose or Ray’s doing that left the window clean enough to let the sweet afternoon light flood the room.</p><p>“You alright?”</p><p>Trevor turned around, brought back to the present. This wasn’t his garage anymore, and it wasn’t Rose’s either. It was Julie’s, and he was there with her for a reason.</p><p>“Fine,” he said. “It just brings back a lot of memories.”</p><p>Julie nodded and sat in the chair across from the couch.</p><p>“Are they here?” Trevor asked.</p><p>Julie nodded. She pointed to the other chair. “Reggie,” she said. Then she moved her extended finger to the side of the sofa closer to the piano, “Alex,” she said. She pointed at the piano itself. “And Luke’s sitting on top of that.”</p><p>Trevor followed the path of her finger, and saw nothing. The chair was just a chair, the sofa nothing more than a sofa, and the piano simply sat there, the polished top of it home to no one. Still, he believed her. She needed to believe her, or else this was all worthless. He sat on the sofa, the side that Julie said wasn’t occupied by Alex. After the springs of the couch squeaked under him, the room was silent. Or, to him it was silent. Perhaps Julie was hearing the voices he’d been longing to hear for so long.</p><p>Julie’s eyes flicked from the chair to the sofa to the piano, except she didn’t look at any of them, instead just beyond them or just above them. Her eyes were so focused, yet Trevor couldn’t see what they were focused on. It was strange, knowing that the three of them sat in a room with him for the first time in 25 years. He tried to imagine them there. Their faces were so far from his memory. He had pictures. Pictures from photo shoots when all the magazines thought that Sunset Curve was going to be the next big thing, pictures they took behind the scenes, to save memories of their most important shows, pictures taken right in this garage during rehearsals, when they wanted to make note that the time they spent together was just as important off stage as it was on. But those photos were hidden deep in Trevor’s closet. It used to be so hard for him to look at them, and it was all he would do. Try desperately to remember his life long past. Now he was moved on. Or at least he thought he was moved on. He let the blurry images of his friends slip from his mind, and to have them so suddenly brought back was jarring. He forgot about those dumb fanny packs that Alex wore across his chest. He had forgotten the way that Reggie always tried to share a mic with Luke, and how much he used to hate it. He’d forgotten the very sound of their voices, being able to hear Luke’s blend perfectly with Julie’s was a privilege, because it was a voice he thought he would never hear again. Their faces were distant in his memory, and then so sudden and clear and right in front of him. Their noses and cheeks and eyes were just yards away, and never changing. Never aging.</p><p>Seventeen.</p><p>The three of them would be seventeen forever, and he was so far from that. He was forty-two, he had a daughter he loved more than anything, and an ex-wife he was learning to live with. He had awards on his shelves and records on his walls. He had the life he always dreamed of, except those dreams used to always involve Luke, Alex, and Reggie. Now he lived his dream all on his own</p><p>“Does anyone want to say anything?” Julie asked no one. There was silence for a while, but Trevor could see an overwhelming look develop on Julie’s face. “Whoa, whoa. One at a time please. Alex?”</p><p>Julie looked to the couch, and Trevor followed her eyes to nothing. Still, he stared at that nothing. He wanted to know if Alex was looking at him, or if he was looking at Julie. He wanted to know if he was slouched or sitting up straight. If he was wearing a hoodie or a jean jacket or a baseball cap or what. He wanted to know.</p><p>“Alex wants to know how you’re doing.”</p><p>Trevor looked to Julie. “How I’m doing?”</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>He sighed and rubbed his chin. He didn’t know if he was supposed to look at Julie, or where he was told Alex was, or switch his eyes between the three spots he knew his friends were. He decided to play it safe, look at his hands. “I’m alright. I’m doing alright.”</p><p>There was silence again.</p><p>“He wants to know what you’ve been up to.”</p><p>“Uh. Well, a lot. I mean, it’s been 25 years.” He didn’t even know where to start. “I got married in 2002, divorced three years after that. I’ve got a kid. Carrie. Julie says you’ve met her. Or, come as close to meeting her as you can get.”</p><p>Julie agreed, then; “Alex really likes her music.”</p><p>Trevor chuckled. “That true?”</p><p>Julie nodded.</p><p>“Well, thank you, Alex. She uh, she works hard.” He let out a deep breath and rubbed his hands together. He was still fumbling with the question that Alex asked. He was tasked with summarizing the past 25 years of his life to three people he couldn’t see. It was tough. “I’ve recorded some music. You know, I’m living the dream that we always wanted. Going on tours, winning Grammys-”</p><p>“The Grammys are-” she stopped. “Oh.”</p><p>“The Grammy’s have been around for a while, Julie,” Trevor informed her.</p><p>She nodded slowly, her mouth tight. </p><p>“Anyways. I’ve done a lot of self help. Got really into meditation, trying to be a better person. I’m a Buddhist now. That’s new.”</p><p>He waited for someone to respond, but he couldn’t tell if anyone did.</p><p>“Reggie laughed when you said that,” Julie said.</p><p>Trevor smiled. Of course he did. He looked right at Julie, and it was like he was seeing Reggie too. It was like he was seeing all of them, all wrapped up in the tiny, wonderful person that was Julie Molina. Her eyes darted to the piano - or just above the piano -  and her expression turned serious. Long seconds passed before she spoke again. </p><p>“Luke.” She sighed, and broke eye contact with the space above the piano. “Luke wants to know why you stole his music.”</p><p>Trevor cleared his throat. He knew this question was coming, but he wasn’t prepared for it. “I… don’t know. I didn’t really plan to. I just needed to get back on my feet. I mean, for years after you died I had nothing, I did nothing. I didn’t think I could do music without you guys, so I just gave up. I was living out here, in this garage, but when my parents moved they told me I needed to get my own home, and a real job. So I got a job at Walmart. I had this plan to move up the ranks, become a manager one day. But I hated it. I was in therapy, and my therapist helped me deal with all the stuff that was weighing me down. She said that if music was the only thing that made me really happy, then I couldn’t just give up on it. But it had been years since I’d written anything, or even picked up my guitar. I couldn’t make music without thinking about you guys, and it hurt too much for me to do that. So I decided I was just going to release what already existed. I just re recorded it and put my name on the album. I wanted to credit you guys, but I wasn’t Sunset Curve anymore. I was just one guy. I wasn’t even Bobby anymore. I was Trevor, I had to change it. I had to stop being the person I used to be. After you died I was, I was a mess. And I didn’t want to be that person anymore, so I became Trevor. And my name was on the album and, you know, plenty of musicians don’t write their own music. 21 Pilots, One Republic, Maroon 5.”</p><p>“They don’t know who they are,” Julie said. He plowed on.</p><p>“I just, I thought that I was keeping Sunset Curve alive by releasing it. And I didn’t credit you, Luke, because you were dead. You are dead. There was no one who was going to sue me, so I just did it. I wanted the music to be out in the world, I didn’t think it would make me famous. I just thought it would make me happy.”</p><p>“Did it?” Luke asked. He looked towards him, only it was Julie’s face he saw. Luke hadn’t said a thing, it was all Julie. “Uhm. Luke wants to know if it made you happy.”</p><p>He nodded, slowly. First at Julie, then towards the piano. He imagined Luke could see him, that he could see the tears welling up in his eyes. “It did,” he whispered. Then, stronger, “It did. I think. But that year, the year I put out that album was the year Carrie was born. And me and Marissa were doing really good, and Mom beat her cancer that year. All those things made me happy, the music was part of it. The memory of you guys was part of it.”</p><p>A single tear fell from his eye, he wiped it away. He hoped they could see it, that they knew what it meant.</p><p>“Luke says he’s happy about your mom.”</p><p>“Thank you,” he squeaked out. “We were really worried about her back then, weren’t we?”</p><p>Julie didn’t say anything for a while. Trevor assumed she was listening to one of the boys, but when he looked at her she was staring right back at him. “Anything else?” she asked.</p><p>Trevor pinched his lips together. The tears rearranged themselves in his eyes, and he fought to keep his voice steady. “Yeah. Yeah. I want them to know that I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I forgot them, and that I took from them. That I used them. I want them to know that if I could do it all over again I would never, ever do that. I don’t need the fame or the money or anything. I just-” A sob slipped past his guard and shook his body and his words. “I just want them to know I’m sorry and I love them and I would do anything, anything to get to see them again.” The sobs were steady now, shaking his whole body. Right there. In that garage, in that home that used to be his. Used to be theirs. He cried and cried.</p><p>He felt the warm arms of someone around him, and he looked.</p><p>It was Julie.</p><p>There were tears in her eyes to match his own, and her arms around her felt so safe, so familiar. There he was, a grown man, being comforted by a girl who was hardly a teenager, and yet she was more of an adult than he could ever hope to be. </p><p>When she pulled away she looked right in his eyes, and despite her tears there was a smile on her face.</p><p>“They want you to know that they forgive you, and that they love you too.”</p><p>It was all he wanted to hear for so many years, and when Julie pulled away from him fully, he swore he could feel the ghosts of someone’s arms still wrapped around him.</p>
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